Hubbard on Democracy

L. Ron Hubbard was quite explicitly opposed to democratic principles; this explains to a large extent why the Church of Scientology is run with virtually no internal democratic structures or accountability to its members.

The following extracts are a round-up of Hubbard's views on the subject of democracy.

"The reason a democracy or any wide open group caves in lies in its extending its privileges of membership to those who seek to destroy it."

HCOPL 17 March 1965.

"Watching the US and Australia fight Scientology with blind fury while supporting oppressive mental and religious practices proves that democracy, applied to and used by aberrated people, is far from an ideal activity and is only aberrated democracy ...

"Therefore a democracy is a collective-think of reactive banks. Popular opinion is bank opinion.

"Any human group is likely to elect only those who kill them. That's concluded from actual 1950 experiments."

HCOPL 13 Feb 1965, "Politics"

"8. Scientology is for a free people and is itself on this date declared free of any political connection or allegiance of any kind whatever."

HCOPL 10 Jan 1968, "Politics, Freedom From"

(emphasis added; Hubbard is here declaring that Scientology has no commitment to any political system except its own.)

"This is a government circa mid-20th century. Its highest skill is murder which in its profundity it makes legal.

"A totally democratic organization has a bad name in Dianetics and Scientology despite all this talk of agreement. I has been found by actual experiment (LA 1950) that groups of people called on to select
a leader from among them by nomination and vote routinely select only those who would kill them. They select the talkers of big deeds and ignore the doers. They seem to select unerringly the men of average skill. That is never good enough in a leader and the people suffer from his lack of understanding. If you ever have occasion to elect a leader for your group, don't be "democratic" about it."